TORONTO—After settlements and legal battles surrounding its use of photos for its ads, Facebook faced a new scandal Tuesday when Rehtaeh Parsons’s photo showed up on a dating ad.
Dating company Ionechat.com used the photo of Parsons in what Facebook called “an extremely unfortunate example of an advertiser scraping an image from the Internet and using it in their ad campaign.”
Facebook made the statement via email to the Toronto Star and said it has banned the company from advertising on the site.
Parsons, 15, of Halifax, Canada, committed suicide in April after an alleged sexual assault and consequent cyber-bullying.
On August 26, Facebook struck a $20 million deal to settle a class-action suit for allegedly failing to inform users their photos would be used in “sponsored stories” ads. The ad featuring Parsons’s likeness was not a sponsored stories ad, but it similarly used a photo taken from Facebook.
When a Facebook user hits the “like” button for a product, his or her profile photo could be used without permission in sponsored stories ads for that product.
Following the settlement users still will not be able to prevent their likenesses from being used in ads, but they will be able to control how they are used to a certain extent. Only minors will be able to opt out.
Facebook has also been pressured to use discretion when placing ads on pages with controversial or inappropriate content.
It announced in June that it would pull ads from pages that contain violence or sexual content. The social network said it will expand its definition of pages and groups that are too controversial to carry advertisements.
Facebook has sought to strike a balance between giving its 1.1 billion users the freedom to post what they want and providing advertisers with space to sell their products.
In May, Facebook Inc. lost more than a dozen advertisers, at least temporarily, after the activist group Women, Action and the Media urged an advertising boycott to protest hate speech on the Facebook site. The controversial content included grisly photos and mottos that encouraged rape, abuse, and other violence against women.
The company said then that it would review its guidelines, update training for employees and increase accountability for those who post such matter.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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